


wade through the fire and smoke like sunlight

by clarasxii



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 13:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12960513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarasxii/pseuds/clarasxii
Summary: Everything goes into focus, slowly, and he realizes there’s a telepathic link keeping him conscious, and a mop of dirty blonde hair in his face. Or: The Thirteenth Doctor goes back to the colony ship and finds the Master.





	wade through the fire and smoke like sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Three things are responsible for this fic: [this gifset](http://julielilac.tumblr.com/post/166577407312/wherever-you-go-my-heart-will-go-too-what-can-i) that I spent three hours looking for, the song Let's Get Married by Bleachers, and my chronic lack of sleep. The title is from Start A Riot, by Banners, which I feel is a great Doctor/Master song.
> 
> Also, this is my first attempt at writing Doctor Who, so please have mercy.

**** In the end, it doesn’t kill him any more than anything else has.

His mind gets foggy, and breathing hurts, but it isn’t, it isn’t the end. He refuses to think it likely that his future self has been (will be) so sloppy, so he resolves to believe that he will decide (has decided) to live yet another day.

Getting out of the elevator is the hardest part. He feels ever so cold, and everything is so spinny, and every movement is work and sweat and the world is friction, and his blood is hot, but in the end— he does it. Just like everything else. Through gritted teeth and endured pain, because survival instinct is still stronger than any doom he’s ever known.

His Tardis is around here somewhere. Must be. He’d disguised it at something, but he can’t remember what. It was something— something old? Something new? Something— no, that’s wrong. That’s an Earth saying for— Funerals. Weddings? Something.

The Doctor’s mentioned it before, because his Tardis… his Tardis is blue, and that’s funny because— well, it _isn’t_ actually funny, Thete thinks it is, but Thete— and _oh_ , he really must be out of it if he’s calling the Doctor _Thete_. Maybe he’s wrong, maybe he _is_ dying. 

That wouldn’t be so bad. He’s tired of this body anyway, of all it’s endured. All the pain and bad memories and all the sheer insanity that runs through it. Burning like a sun, she said (will say), and loving every second of it, she’ll lie (has lied), but…

He doesn’t think he’s ready to be her. Big blue eyes and somewhat shifting moral compass, dark curls and ever present loyalty.

_It’s time to stand with him. He’s right._ She’s wrong. (She’s right.)

There’s something shiny in his field of vision. He can’t make it out yet, but there’s an oasis of iron or steel in the middle of all the smoke and broken stone. Maybe he hadn’t disguised his Tardis after all, maybe he just left it, and— _oh_. It’s the elevator. Still stained with fresh blood. It’s— _he’s been walking in circles._

Breathing hurts. It’s cold. He thinks he might— he thinks he might sit. Burn in peace, burn out like a dying star and wake up to a developing conscience and a set of breasts. That doesn’t sound too bad. It doesn't feel like it’s time, but he— he might—

And then, just as he’s about to let himself fall onto his knees, there’s arms around him.

It takes him longer than it should to process it. First there’s the warmth, and then the hitting something that is distinctly not the ground, and something is wet— his blood running down his back, someone’s tears against his neck, and he can feel—

_Heartbeats_. 

Everything goes into focus, slowly, and he realizes there’s a telepathic link keeping him conscious, and a mop of dirty blonde hair in his face.

He means to say _Doctor_ , he does, but before he can stop himself—

“ _Theta?_ ”

There’s muffled crying against his neck, and then a soft voice.

“Yeah.”

“Why— why are you crying?”

“Question of the hour.”

_The Doctor’s a girl._ It sinks in easier than the whole not dead ordeal has, to be fair.

The Doctor’s a girl, he’s not dead, and she’s currently holding him up.

“That about sums it up.” she says, because clearly he’s not been keeping his thoughts to himself. He doesn’t really mind.

“My Tardis’ here somewhere” he mumbles into the crook of her neck before the thought can escape him, and then he somehow manages to get an arm around her shoulders to better— just cause he wants to, actually. She’s so warm.

“Yeah, we can look for it some other time. Time machine, remember?”

They both laugh. His is weak, hers is hoarse, like she’s holding back tears.

He wants to tell her not to cry, even though that seems silly. It’s probably a waste of breath, and she can probably hear him think it anyway.

 

 

 

The logistics of how she gets him off the damn hell hole of a colony ship and into her Tardis escape him, because he isn’t conscious for most of it (and when he is, he only notices things like how cold it is and how soft her hair looks), but he wakes up in a familiar enough standard issue medical bay, feeling mostly himself.

He checks his hands first, notices the bandages and the bloodied shirt cuffs, and a wave of relief washes over him. Whoever he is going to be next, he’s not ready to be that person now.

He gets up— slow and painful, like these things always are, and stumbles out of the sick bay and into a hallway that is merciful enough to lead him straight to the main control room— the ship’s always been nicer than her pilot.

 

Said pilot has, at the moment, mostly disappeared under the computer bank, where she seems to be fiddling with a specific part of the wiring while making various sounds of frustration at it.

He stands against the doorway, and clears his throat.

“Spring cleaning?” 

The Doctor gets her head out from under the console and rests on her elbows. She’s wearing big safety goggles and her nose is smeared in engine oil.

“That, and I’m trying to prevent us from blowing up in the next twenty minutes. You don’t happen to have a spare dematerialization circuit on you, do you?”

He doesn’t know what she’s on about. The goggles are very distracting.

“I— that’s right, I should carry one of those. Might come in handy in case of black hole.”

And then he remembers. Of course. The back hole, and the ship, and— _oh, he’s done something_. He can’t remember what, but it’s really, really bad, and catastrophically stupid. He didn’t mean to, he lashed out, and—

“Will you come look at this? You’ve installed it, or, well, you will, and I’m still rubbish at reverse-engineering.”

He makes a show of looking annoyed, carefully lowers himself next to her, groaning, then looks up at the wiring. The circuits are mostly fried, it’s going to be hell to fix, but nothing looks like it might explode in the too-near future.

He pouts. “You’re putting me to work, already? I’ve just nearly died, you know.”

“And I’ve just _actually_ died. You don’t see me complaining.”

He remembers her tears on his neck, her two heart beating too fast for their sake against his chest, the quiet screaming through the telepathic link and the very loud fear as she hauled him back to safety, and he—

“It wasn’t your fault.”

He’s caught off guard. She smiles tentatively and her eyes are clear and green through the specs, and he wants— 

“You can’t remember, because there were two of you, but it wasn’t your fault. Well, it wasn’t _not_ your fault, either, but it wasn’t you who did it.”

(It most likely isn’t true, of course, but in _Doctor_ , that means: _you’re not_ actively _the reason my friends are dead, I’m not blaming you for it, and you are safe right now_. It’s terrifying that he both understands this and finds comfort in it. Sometimes he forgets that the Doctor is just as scary as he is, and the reminder is always welcome.)

He wants to ask where Missy is, but he somehow knows not to.

And then— it’s the goggles, and the smeared oil, and the sheer improbability of this millennia old being he’s lying next to, equally terrible and so much more lovable than he is, and he wants to—

He wants to _kiss her_.

He does.

She tastes like banana pancakes and sweet tea. She feels like silk and clouds under his hand. He bumps her goggles with his nose and she huffs in his face, softly, but does not move away.

It occurs to him, suddenly, that he could have (should have) done this a lot sooner.

His hands are still on her cheeks, and she’s still breathing on his face, warm and slow and slightly confused, and everything about Missy, everything he couldn’t understand, it all just _clicks_. Of _course_.

“Oh, I’m so _daft_.” 

“Yeah, I keep telling you that.”

He resolves, uselessly —he _knows_ himself— to be less daft in the future.


End file.
